App Academy

App Academy was probably one of the more challenging academic experience in my life. The pace of the course was no joke. Students were expected to learn and be able to understand that day's material. Be prepared to quickly absorb the materials since the next day will be something completely new. I would advise anyone who is not able to keep up with this pace to reconsider applying to App Academy. However, if you love coding and have aspiration to become a software developer,  App Academy's rigorous course should be your number one bootcamp options as they push you to your limit and allow you grow independently as a developer.

A roadmap advice for fellow future developers applying to App Academy: one, study up. The bootcamp says they will accept students even if they have not never code before. However,  the coding challenges to get accepted in the bootcamp are not trivial. They will require some basic knowledge of a programming language. App Academy also offers a free JumpStart program or a Bootcamp Prep course that will prepare you for these coding challenges. If you have never coded before, I highly advise doing either of the programs I mentioned before. They are extremely helpful and you also get a taste of the App Academy's culture before joining.

Great! You passed the coding challenges and the non-technical interview and are accepted into App Academy. Now what? It is very important to do and complete the Alpha Course before the start of the curriculum.  Ninja advice, the Alpha Course will prep you well for the first two weeks, but you have to keep learning at a fast pace. You will not be doing just Ruby (the first language taught in App Academy) . If you have extra time before starting App Academy, my advice is to read up and look at some code for SQL and Ruby on Rails. This will smooth your transition from simple object oriented programming in the first two weeks to the first real web development process, backend development and database management.

You are about to make an exciting decision in your life. Prepare for 80 to 90 hours a week of hard work. You will be living and breathing code. You will have no life, but you will form close bonds with your cohort. Mostly important, you will be having fun because this is what you have always dreamed of doing, so go out there and apply!

App Academy has been one of, if not the most intense and challenging academic experiences of my adult life. I'm really happy with the education I've gotten there, but there are a number of things to consider before you decide to attend.

Stress: The 9 week curriculum covers a huge amount of content and most of it is challenging. Class is from 9-6, followed by several hours of homework each day. The weekends are mostly devoted to studying for upcoming assessments, which are held roughly every week. So beyond the normal stress that this amount of work induces, there's not really much or any time to take care of yourself by going the gym, hanging out with friends, sleeping, etc.

Time Management: Even though the first 9 weeks of this course are highly structured, you will still need to manage your own time well. This includes giving yourself enough time to sleep, even if your'e not finished with all of the work due the following day. Weeks 7 & 8 comprise a self directed project, and weeks 9 - 12 have very little structure at all. How much you get out of those last 5 weeks, and the amount of time it takes you to get job offers once the program ends all depend on your ability to manage your time well.

Cost: aA now has several payment plans, some of which allow students to defer the bulk of tuition payment until they are employed as software developers. That said, the average job search takes between 3 and 6 months, during which those students are contractually restricted from part-time work. This means you will need to be able to afford food and housing, while not working for at least 6 months (the course + minimum job search). In New York. So even if this program was free, a large cost barrier still exists.

Culture: Even though there's not a lot of time to socialize, the cohorts do tend to get pretty tight, and you will need to to help each other out a lot (emotionally and academically). In my experience, there was a strong culture of collaboration, not competition, which I think is strengthened by the emphasis on pair programming at aA.

Okay, that stuff out of the way, you will learn more than you thought possible in the course. The instruction is fantastic, both in lecture and one on one settings. The curriculum also teaches you how to approach learning technologies not covered, which will be an essential skill upon graduating. Even though you will likely have to put in a decent amount of work after graduation in order to land a job, you will be well prepared to do so by the course itself.

If you do decide to attend, you can mitigate a lot of the negative stuff above by preparing well. Attend either JumpStart of Bootcamp Prep. Be really thorough when going through the alpha curriculum prior to the cohort start date. Reach out to people who have gone through the program and ask lots of questions.

Good luck!

I have just recently finished the coding portion of the bootcamp curriculum at the NYC campus. I have to say I am definitely surprised at how much I have learned in such a short span of time, but that was definitely not without daily struggle getting through as much of the day's material as possible. The curriculum is definitely grueling. The 70-90 hours of coding a week is a real thing and will leave you without almost anytime for anything else (social life, sometimes laundry, mealprepping). Even after doing 70-90 hours a week, you will have to learn to be okay with some concepts / ideas falling through the cracks as it is inevitable at the learning pace. Throughout the course I felt like I was barely keeping afloat during the material, as most everyone else was, as your TA's will tell you, this is normal. As we progressed through the course, I found myself understanding concepts later on through the week, and slowly found myself struggling with newer material at the tail end of the course. I started to feel not as strong as I did earlier on and worried that I would not be ready to tackle the fullstack project that is completed after the coding curriculum. That was completely not true, once we hit our projects I found out how much I learned and quickly was able to cover the knowledge gaps I did have beforehand just by working through the projects. Overall, I would say that attending this bootcamp can definitely be worth it if you feel as though you can put the time and work in. I would advise any incoming students to put in as much work in as you can as the weeks really do fly by. 

Came in with expectations that the next 3-4 months would be challenging and overwhelming, and indeed it was. One thing I did not expect was the feeling of accomplishment along with joy when developing projects from ground up. The type of projects I thought were impossible seemed doable even after months of learning. A valuable takeaway when completing this program is to be able to self sustain and continue to learn more about what programming has to offer. And of course to get a job that you love to do.

I was going to write a whole review but I think it would be way too long so I'll do a TL;DR and supply my email if you have any questions about my time at App Academy and Flatiron School.

A little background, I was a psych and business major who wrote his first line of code 8 months before attending a/A. I was at app academy (a/A) starting in November '17 for 5 weeks before being released due to 'not passing' two assessments. The reason I am writing this review is to warn others like me and to hope they don't make the same mistake. a/A isn't a bad school. It's just not for everyone. Full disclosure, I am now attending Flatiron School and am 9 weeks in so I will be comparing the two because I wish someone told me what I am about to tell you.

I'm sure you've read it a million times, a/A is rigorous, difficult, and very STRESSFUL. And that can't be said enough. Even when I was released, an instructor told me that a/A is the most stressful bootcamp. Anyway, I am not afraid of challenges and that alone would never disregard a school, however, that along with a subpar curriculum, unnecessary attendance takes (you have to log your attendance three times a day, when you arrive, after lunch and after a 15 minute break), and LOADS of readings and homework every night makes learning and retaining information very hard. 100 hours a week is the time you will be grinding if you attend a/A.

My assessment story...

The first assessment that I failed was my fault because since a/A has class on Thanksgiving, I didn't get to see my family so I ended up meeting my brother in the city that weekend, he was here from Virginia. The night ended later than I thought and messed up my weekend studying and ended up doing poorly on the test. The second test I failed, I missed by ONE SPEC. There were 76 specs and I got an 83.33%, and 85% was passing. So after the second fail, you get to retake THE SAME DAY. The test was two hours, I was tired, but now I have to take another 2-hour test. You might be thinking I should be good because I only missed one spec so I should pass the second. Well, when the retake in 5X more difficult than the first one and you're exhausted from just taking a 2-hour test then good luck. I was in that room doing the retake with two others. One of them stopped typing after a half hour because she had no idea what was going on, and the other left with a half hour left. No one was close to passing the second exam and we were all booted along with the other 8 ppl that were booted before us. That is app academy for you. 

I would say the biggest difference in a/A and Flatiron is that Flatiron not only teaches you how to code but to love it and know it. While App Academy teaches you how to memorize in order to pass ridiculous assessments. 

App Academy has a take no prisoners feel and Flatiron has an all things have a soul feel. In other words, Flatiron cares about you, they know how to teach you how to code and build great things, and they get you to love code. Flatiron's platform is the best platform for learning code bar none and if you are falling behind the TAs are more than happy to take you one on one to make sure you understand.

App Academy thinks beating you over the head with the info via readings and lectures will get you to learn.You have to teach yourself at a/A. Yea the instructors give you the information, but the course moves so fast that if you don't understand something you have no time to try to understand it, so you are forced to memorize code in order to pass assessments. 

You can email me at EsbeeScribe@yahoo.com if you have any particular questions regarding my time at either App Academy or Flatiron School. 

I just finished the main portion of AppAcademy's full-time bootcamp in NYC, i.e. week 9 out of the full 12 weeks. (Note, for some reason Yelp tagged this as being for SF, but this is a review of the NYC campus.)  I came into the program with about a year of experience tinkering with Ruby, Javascript, and Python, and some background in logic, and a long history of playing around with computers, but no academic CS background.   My academic background is in the humanities (philosophy and theology) and I spent the first six years after college in grad school, then teaching, then working at a small magazine. 

The course is extremely intense. (I say this as someone who graduated in the top 10% of my class at Yale.) About 25% of my cohort was asked to leave because they couldn't keep up with the pace. That said, the instructors do a good job of helping you through each day, and the structure of the course itself, from one day to the next, is very thoroughly regimented. If you do the course, I recommend surrendering to the routine as much as possible.  There is always more work to do--you will almost never finish a day's projects. The name of the game is to struggle for 14+ hours, get some sleep, and then struggle again the next day. You will work on weekends, you will not have a day off before week ten (and if you think you do, you're probably making a mistake). If you can keep up, you will find that the rate of your learning is really high.

A typical day goes as follows: you arrive at the office by ~8:45am in advance of the morning checkin and go to your assigned seat for the day, with your partner for the day. 9 - 9:30am is spent doing a CSS exercise. 9:30 to about noon is spent in lecture (lectures have built-in Q&A time, and a five minute break in the middle). Lectures cover everything from O(n) and implementing backend Auth to meta-programming in Ruby and state structure design in Redux.  Lectures are generally reinforcement of the essential concepts from the previous night's readings and homework.  This means they tend to be more basic, and more Q&A oriented than the readings--as a result they can feel boring if you understood the readings right away, but the reinforcement is essential.  At 12:30 there's a lunch break, which continues until 1:45pm. Some people work on homework during lunch, but the instructors encourage students to take the time to have a break.  At 1:45 there's another checkin, after which you resume work with your partner, starting the day's projects.  There are usually two or three projects, the first one deals with implementing the concepts in the day's lecture, and then the subsequent projects tend to be more advanced extensions of the same material. You will rarely get through the second project of the day.  Many days you won't even finish the first.  At 6pm an instructor dismisses the class and makes any announcements or reminders.  After 6pm about 1/4 of the cohort will stay behind to complete their homework at the office.  Most people go home to do the homework, which is usually ~3 hours, depending on the number of recorded lecture segments and readings.  After finishing the homework, students are expected to review the solutions to the day's projects, and read through the next day's project instructions in advance.

That's life for the first 7 weeks of the course.  Assessments are usually on Mondays or Wednesdays.  They're terrifying, very difficult to prepare for, and intense, but if you do what the instructors tell you to do to study, and use the provided resources, the test itself should go fine.  In the 8th week the typical lecture/project/homework schedule goes away and students spend about 10 days doing individual full-stake projects.  This building a production-ready clone of a major web application (facebook, airbnb, etc.) from scratch, on your own.  Project presentations happen at the end of week 9, after which the jobsearch curriculum begins.  This is three weeks of lecture, independent projects, application/interview prep, etc. (That's where I'm at right now).  

If I remember, I'll come back and update this review once some time passes so I can assess the program in light of its key promise: to help you get an engineering job. As things stand, it could hardly have been better, except in minor ways here and there (a few unclear assignments, a few weak lectures), but as a learning experience it's up in the top experiences of my life.  Totally practical, radically empowering.  I learned a lot.  And continue to learn about as much in the past two months as I think I could have.

I came into the program, like many others, as a career switcher.  I had taken two intro level programming courses in undergrad before attending.  The hours are rough - be prepared to spend at minimum 30 hours a week on top of the course completing homeworks, readings, and completing your projects.  However, the instructors are more than helpful and there's nothing more motivating than surrounding yourself with some of the smartest people around.  The course is very well laid out and  each topic leads into the next which helps with absorbing the material.  It's common to have to put your social life on hold while attending this course but the payout is definitely worth it! 

App Academy is an extremely intense, though not entirely too difficult, course. If you're someone with no programming experience (like me), then it means making sure that learning software development becomes your #1, #2, and #3 priority. The pace of the material is set up such that you'll always have something new to learn, and there are always additional resources provided for your learning. I'd recommend a/A to people who are great at being self-motivated and can handle a fast-paced learning environment. If not, there are plenty of great programs in the city to choose from that are less strenuous.

App Academy opened a door to a career in software development that I didn't even know existed (I had thought six-figure software engineering positions only came through traditional paths, such as four-year CS degrees, etc.).

But, after leaving a career in finance, I'm now earning almost double what I was previously (plus I'm in a junior/entry-level role, so that should increase with time/experience), I'm doing something that I love, and I get to work in a relaxed environment (busy, for sure, but it's fun, without any of the stilted corporate rules, like a 50's-era dress code, etc., that I left behind in finance). I have App Academy to thank for this, hence the 5 stars.

So I'm happy to report that it's all pretty much as advertised. It's a rigorous 3 month course that will consume your entire life at the time, but you'll learn a ton, make great friends, and be able to land a fun and lucrative position (eventually) to kickstart your new career in software engineering.

That said, something that wasn't fully emphasized to me upfront is that the job search can become a long, drawn out, exhausting process that I found much harder and less rewarding (at least in the short term) than the 3 months of intense coding. I believe the "average" job search time estimated when I first applied was "3 months", which was then later verbally estimated at "4 to 5 months", and ultimately ended up being 10 months, in my case.

Don't get me wrong; we had one student from our cohort who had a job within 2 weeks of graduating and a healthy number of others had new jobs within the first few months, but many others had job searches much longer than that. Some landed jobs at Google/YouTube, Yelp, Dropbox, etc., while others at smaller startups, and many took on temporary contract work or internships; there's not a single path here, so there's diversity in the success stories and App Academy is pretty flexible in supporting you however you get there.

In other words, I'd keep that in mind and plan accordingly; you might get a job right away, but more likely it will take months, and could very well take almost a year to get an offer, in which case you need to be mentally/financially prepared for that going in. There's a lot of rejection involved when trying to get your foot in the door and all of these companies receive hundreds, if not thousands, of applications. If you're skilled at networking, you'll likely fare much better.

You may have heard how much of a shortage there is for software engineers in the industry right now, but if you check out the job boards (or just attempt the job search), you'll soon find that the shortage is actually for experienced mid-to-senior level engineers, as there is an abundance of junior engineers coming from colleges, self-taught individuals, or one of the many bootcamps, which each churn out about 70 - 80 new junior engineers every three months, with largely the same technical background.

In any case, even though it took me a grueling 10 month job search to finally fulfill the dream, I'd definitely do it again, love what App Academy's given me, and am really excited to grow in my new career.

I can't recommend App Academy enough; just remember that it actually gets harder after the initial 3 month coding program and that you may not feel relieved or at rest until you ultimately accept an offer.

Thanks, a/A!

While trying to switch careers and knowing that the tech industry is where I wanted to be, I did a lot of research into what the best process was to get started. I didn't have a CS degree, and I knew nothing about coding. After speaking with a couple of tech recruiters in the industry, I was told that App Academy was one of the only bootcamps they take seriously enough to hire straight out of with no previous experience. So speaking as someone who knew nothing coming into App Academy, I feel it's important to stress that they are not kidding when they say it's intense. You will spend on average 100 hours a week trying to learn new technologies at such an intense rate that you'll constantly feel a step behind. I personally loved my experience and am so glad I did it because I learned so many new things, am very proud of what I've accomplished, and truly feel as if I've learned the technologies enough to reproduce results at my next job, but it's not for everyone. I highly recommend it for anyone serious about switching careers and would tell you to not to count yourself out if you don't know a thing about coding coming into it, but keep in mind that if you can't handle 100 hour weeks or giving up your weekends and social life to learn how to code, this bootcamp is not for you. It will become your life for three months, but if you can get through it and want a change in your life that's both financially beneficial and intellectually stimulating, you should definitely apply! Again, I loved my time here and would do it again given the chance, but I feel like it's important to know up front what you're getting yourself into.

App Academy has been a great learning experience.  The staff is extremely knowledgeable and the curriculum is tailored towards YOUR success.  Having no prior experience, I walked into class thinking I had bit off more than I could chew.  However, going through the daily pair programming sessions I learned more than I thought was possible in the short amount of time.   It's stressful, and it's certainly hard, but it works.  If you really want to dive into a career in software development, App Academy may be the right place for you.  But be prepared to put in the time and effort required to succeed.

App academy was an awesome experience. You'll learn something new everyday and you'll be surrounded by driven and focused peers. The course is super fast paced and difficult (even compared to other bootcamps) so you'll find that on top of technical skills you'll also build on your time management and communication skills as well. 
Indeed the course can be stressful at times but if you go into it with a positive attitude and an appetite for learning you'll succeed!

It was amazing full stack coding experience with Ruby, JS, SQL and CSS. You will learn a lot  in a very short period of time. You would be expected to work 90 hours a week!
If 90 hours a week is to much for you don't even think about a/A.  The huge curriculum combined with the fast pace. For me  the best part was algorithms.
AppAcademy will challenge you with the speed and depth of learning. You would be expected to build a 100% full  stack website by the end of the program, even if you don't know anything right now. Be ready, this is stressful. There are  6 different assessments during curriculum. If you miss two you will be dismissed.  Please be aware that this an environment where, once you fall behind, there is no catching up. I believe this was the most challenging education in my life. 

These past few months have been quite a journey.  This bootcamp will push and challenge you in ways you didn't think were possible.  I went from knowing little to nothing about programming to creating a full fledge application in under two months.

App Academy is very selective of their enrollees right from the start during the admission process.  Although the experience differs for each student, it typically involves submitting a coding challenge on a few common problems once you're ready.  If you make through that part, you have to endure a technical interview where you cover a few more problems live over Skype followed by a non-technical interview to assess what makes you a candidate for their program.

If accepted to the program, you go through an at-your-pace online alpha curriculum that covers the basics of programming before you start the bootcamp.  The bootcamp covers three months of education: 8 weeks of the coding curriculum followed by 4 weeks of projects/job search curriculum.  During the 8 weeks of coding curriculum, you will learning everything you need to know about the fullstack process from backend to frontend.  Also, during these 8 weeks, you will be tested on your knowledge of the material every 1 to 1.5 weeks through an assessment.  Failing two assessments will dismiss you from the program.  Even the brightest of students fail an assessment.    The assessments are there to help maintain the quality of students coming out of App Academy as well as provide structure for students.

The structure is something you cannot get out of learning the material on your own.  It forces students to learn the material as well as learn how to learn new material as technology changes in the job market.  Every day, you go through a lecture in the morning starting at 8 AM followed by programming (usually paired) till 6 pm.  Every night you will have readings and homework.  During the day, App Academy has a strike system that ensures you are focused on learning, being present and doing your homework.  This is also another area that can get students dismissed if they accrue enough strikes.  Despite all these challenges, the time you have at App Academy will be among the best in your life.  You will make great friends who will be your network entering the job market.  The staff is also very dedicated to ensuring you succeed in the job market as an eventual software developer.  They're always on hand to help answer any questions you have about the material or the program.  Nearly everyone on staff has also gone through the curriculum and know of its challenges.  They have also seen the program work for many students.  

Make no mistake, this program will push you.  This program is not for everyone.  Everybody comes to App Academy for a reason.  Make sure your reason for attending is strong.  If you are really interested in pursuing a career in programming and willing to go through pains and joys of learning to be a software developer, apply today for the program.  It will change your life.

The crown jewel of app academy is its curriculum and structure. They provide you with the tools to learn everything and help when you're stuck, but are hands off enough that you can really pick things up yourself. Yes the course is arduous and stressful, but I believe that's by design. People tend to retain information more when they're stressed out, and the proof of that is show by how much everyone is able to absorb by the end of the 12 weeks. The job search curriculum is a great transition for students to move from a lot of structure, to less structure, to then no structure once the 12 weeks are officially. As a fresh graduate, I would definitely recommend app academy to aspiring developers.

Before App Academy (a/A) I was in a field that made a fair amount of money but stressed me out and gave me little sleep.  I was a hobbyist programmer that taught myself C++ and Objective-C but I knew that web development was something that I needed to know to succeed as a programmer. So I decided to start reading up on short web development programming schools. I applied and was accepted to each 'boot camp' I applied to--including a/A and Hack Reactor. I picked a/A because I was focused more on how well I perceived their job search support to be. At the time, I felt that I really wouldn't learn too much programming principals but instead learn some frameworks and syntax with whatever boot camp I applied to. Well I was wrong. I learned things like recursion and time complexity at a/A. I don't know how long it would have taken me to even know these things existed if I was learning solely on my own. They are very encouraging throughout the entire process, but especially during the job search. That's not to say they hold your hand throughout the process--you're expected to be a self-starter and ask questions if you're behind. They are more than willing to help, but you've got to ask questions. One thing that I had mixed feelings about was the attrition rate (or amount of people that either got kicked or left the program.) When I signed up the a/A website said attrition was around 5%, now it says it's around 10%. But for my cohort and the cohort before mine it was about 20%. For me, this is a risk that I would not have taken if I knew it was this high. It's 3 months without work and no security that you will be allowed to continue through the program unless you pass all 6 assessments. From my cohort most people that failed out failed either to not putting in the work or being overly stressed about it and either not getting any sleep or overthinking the solutions. Much of passing the tests are memorization. The positive to this is that they are very selective (3% admittance rate like the other top boot camps) but in contrast to the other boot camps this one will continue filtering out students that they feel aren't going to work out in programming where as others will just push them through it. This makes the a/A brand an extremely strong mark on your resume. Overall, I suggest attending this boot camp if you have confidence in your ability to program going into it, but perhaps take a few timed tests or join their Jump Start or boot camp prep program to see if you will cut it if you're unsure.